The Paths of The Dead
by Whispers of a Nameless fear
Summary: A different take on 3 women inserted into a place they've never heard of nor seen called Middle-Earth. How things would really happen including their desparation to return home and their inability to do so with out finding the real reason they are there.
1. The Prologue

**The Paths of the Dead**

A/N: A Person insertion fic. If Sadness isn't your thing and your looking for humor and plotless stupidity, please stop reading and go check out other fics.

Rated: PG-13 for Psychological and Thematic Elements.

Prologue:

Robyn eased her foot on the break as the light turned red in front of her. She grinned as Lee rocked out in the seat diagonally behind her. Mae rolled down the car window of Robyn's little '97 Saturn, then leaned over and proceeded to turn up the radio.

"Make sure you have your seat belt on," Lee said shoving the back of Mae's shoulder. Mae gestured that it was on, "Just making sure."

_That's Lee for you, always so protective and caring of what we were doing... to the point of paranoia at times, really. She's cool though, very outgoing and happy despite her circumstances earlier in life. Strangely, if you don't know her she can be incredibly cynical about the human race. Not very much unlike myself at all, but anyway. She's obsessed with drawing, and she's damn good at it. Better then me and Mae anyway. She's pale with brown hair and brown eyes, her eyes are light colored though. I think they're really cool…_

Mae rolled her eyes and proceeded to rock her head back and forth to the blaring sound of Switchfoot's '_Meant to Live'_.

"So, Lee- you like the movie?" Mae grinned.

"How could she not have?" Robyn interrupted. "It's like the best movie of all time. Everything about it was really frikk'in awesome."

"Well, I know what you thought of it the first time we saw it. You wouldn't stop crying that the trilogy was over." Mae snapped back. Lee of course laughed at the measurable immaturity of her two best friends.

Ah, Mae… sarcastic, mean, snotty… but she's ours. Nah, she's not that bad all the time; only around us. She actually can be really fun so long as she's not on the rag. Fellow friend in our freakish misery called high school. She's a blonde, but only in appearance. She is definitely not a stereotypical blonde. Good lord, no. She works a lot around her house, and I can definitely see sometimes it takes a toll on her. She gets migraines all the time from stress, and I can understand why.

"We were meant to live for so much more… but we lost ourselves…" Robyn sang happily.

"Oh man, it was so awesome. I was tweaking out at the end, but I'm kinda glad we're going home. My mom's going to have a heart attack if I don't come home really soon, I told her that I'd be back by 8:30 and it's 8:15. She's going to worry so much,"

"Uhm… Lee? You do realize… your not late and when we get there it's not even going to be late… why are you flipping out?" Robyn said, turning back to her. The grin never faded from her face because, well she'd seen the movie 3 times and December wasn't even over yet.

"It's Lee, Robyn. She's going to be flipping out even if it was daylight in the middle of the summer." Mae laughed.

"Hey! I'm not that bad…" Lee made a small pout. Mae looked back,

"Yeah. You are." Mae shot back.

"Holy crap. This red light last years long." Robyn said, finally exasperated.

"Well we are crossing a freakin highway." Mae replied.

"Yeah, okay well- no one is here." Robyn pushed herself back against the back of the seat, hands off the steering wheel, red hair falling in her face.

It's kinda funny how much our personalities clash. Lee is bubbly despite her dark appearance with her skulls and combat boots. Mae just doesn't give a damn. She says what's on her mind, when it's on her mind and doesn't really care what people think. And me? I guess I can be eccentrically moody, and I know and I'll be the first to say it; I'm lazy as all hell. I'm smart, but I'm not one for work. Mae tells me all the time about my creepy charisma that just draws in losers, and no matter how annoying I am, people just love me. And I have a problem where sometimes, I'm just sad. I'm working through it though and things are coming better.

Robyn glanced up, "Finally." She sighed, leaning forward again setting her hands on the sides of the steering wheel just as she noticed the light turned yellow.

The light over head turned green and Robyn hit the gas. _"We were meant to live…"_

_Brilliant lights shown through the passenger side windows and the deafening sound of glass shattering and the sharp crunch of steel silenced her._

A/N: Please continue reading; I think You will be pleasantly surprised and Please leave me a note on what you thought of it and how I can better it. 


	2. Chapter 1 Awakening in the Dark

A/N: Please stick with this fic and review. I think you'll be pleasantly surprised and refreshed from the usual self-insertion fiction you usually read.

Chapter 1- Awakening in the Dark

_I opened my eyes and I could only see darkness. It was everywhere, for a few moments I could've sworn I was dead. But then I realized; I didn't know what happened before. Where was I? What happened, I could hear their screams in the back of my mind but I couldn't remember exactly what happened. If I knew, I don't know if I would've tried to get up even. A few minutes after I realized I could hear my breath echoing in where ever I was, and there was a cool dampness that caused the hair on my neck to stand up. Okay, so I couldn't have been dead, but where was I?_

"Lee?" Robyn called out weakly. She sat up and looked around, shivering slightly in the utter darkness.

"Robyn? You're okay?" Lee's voice was heard, distant and echoing.

"Oh god, your alive, we couldn't find you. Where are you?" Mae chimed in immediately after.

"Yeah, I'm over here." Robyn slid off the cold stone pedestal where she lay stumbled over to them. She tripped over the hem a dress that was now apparently on her. Rocks and gravel to where their voice came from.

"Where are we?" Mae asked, her voice was firm but an unusual worry was masked behind it. Silence ensued, and somewhere in the distant corridor they heard a scuffle of feet.

"Who's there?" Robyn hissed. No answer, but the scuffling stopped. "Who's there?!" Robyn then shouted.

Further down the corridor in the opposite direction they heard the noise; there was a dim white light. It grew brighter till they could see it was being held aloft on top of a staff.

The three girls squinted as the light drew closer. Lee held a hand up shielding her eyes from the light.

"Who are you?" a gruff voice asked, "Why are you here?"

There were nine of them; Nine companions, all looking very strange and very different. A tall old man who held the staff almost seemed as if he smiled as he looked at us. Everyone else looked at us like we were… well… very unexpected. Some even had their hands on their swords, or axes for that matter.

"I say we kill them before they cast a spell upon us!" a short, bearded being said holding his ax in front of himself protectively. Lee rose an eyebrow as Mae crossed her arms looking slightly confused.

"We can't cast any spells, we're just girls…" Mae uttered quietly. None of the three girls were armed at all and insulting nine fully armed and very capable looking men didn't seem like such a good idea. If even they were men as you could say. Four of them appeared to look like children, yet they seemed older in their faces and appearance.

"Just girls?" a man said taking a step closer. A shield was slung over his shoulder and hand was placed almost unnoticeably on the hilt of his sword. "Pardon me, ladies, if that is what you say…you appear to be slightly out of place in the dark tunnels of Moria in such neatly kept attires."

The girls looked down, and it was true. Each had on a dress that was very beautiful, but did leave them looking very out of place. They glanced at each other before Robyn shrugged her shoulders.

"I don't know how we got here…" she said in a slightly timid voice. A few of the nine people exchanged uneasy glances.

"What is your names?" a man said. He was tall and noble looking, yet travel worn and alert. He wore dark clothing, yet a sparkling gem at his neck that seemed to catch the gleam from the torch he carried.

"I'm Robyn, and this is Mae and Lee…" Robyn said, her green eyes glanced at her two friends before looking back at the nine travelers.

"Who're you?" Lee asked, looking the men up and down. She didn't look too keen on trusting them, and she really wished that it had been a group of women that found them. Women she could fend off more easily.

"I'm Gandalf the Grey," the grey bearded man said, taking a step forward. His blue eyes twinkled, smiling at the three girls almost looking if he knew more about what was going on then they did.

_Gandalf continued to go on and explain who everyone was in this Fellowship. While he didn't disclose why they were traveling he told us about the different races. He explained that Boromir was a son of Gondor, a mortal man along with Aragorn whom was a ranger from the North. I didn't know what was in the North and I didn't really understand what they were talking about. But the three of us listened as intently as possible trying to take in what ever we could. It then occurred to me that I didn't have any memories of anything. Nothing! I was a complete blank slate, so that made me even hungrier for what ever this … Grey Wizard had to tell us._

He continued on to tell us that the four littlest people in the fellowship were hobbits and that they were really by age older then we were, if not by maturity he added with a glance to the littlest one they called Pippin. Merry, Sam, and Frodo were the other three hobbits with him and they remained quiet save for a few whispers between Merry and Pippin as Gandalf explained. He then explained how the one who nearly refused to put down his ax was Gimli the Dwarf and dwarves were different then hobbits in that they grew a little taller, a beard, and a meaner temper. That we could definitely tell. Then, further back he introduced us to Legolas the elf. I could see it in Lee's eyes that she found him very attractive. That wasn't exactly on my mind at the moment, but I had to admit; elves are very majestic looking and this particular one was very handsome. Not that the men weren't particularly good looking, I just didn't take the time to notice at the time that we were being explained just about everything we needed to know.

"Gandalf, you think it wise to tell them everything about us, they could be spies." Boromir said quietly, hoping the girls wouldn't hear him.

"They are here for a reason, and we found them for a reason… They will travel with us to Lothlorien and perhaps beyond. It would leave us in a far worse fate not to take them, Son of Denethor…" Gandalf said back.

"A reason?" Gimli chimed in with Boromir. "I do not think it so wise to trust them, Gandalf! We don't know who they are and if they speak the truth." The Dwarf seemed very bitter towards us.

"Well, if indeed you do believe they are spies, perhaps we shouldn't leave them out of our sights with all the information I've disclosed to them." Gandalf's eyes twinkled as if Gimli had proven a point. Somewhere deep down, Robyn felt that Gandalf explained whom they were, knowing that the fellowship wouldn't want to take the girls with them.

"Wait a minute! Who said we want to go with you guys!" Mae said abruptly. Aragorn looked up,

"My lady, I do believe it would be in your best interest…you'll find a horde of goblins would show you much less kindness then our Fellowship has,"

"It is settled then, you travel with us to Lorien." Gandalf spoke before any of the girls could have their words in.

__

That was the end of any of our arguments. We walked with the fellowship for several hours without stopping. Gandalf seemed so intent on keeping us with them, that it was almost… strange. In fact it was very strange, strange and suspicious. It was like he had a purpose for us traveling with them; which was weird because we didn't even know who we were; much less where we were going and what we were up against. I think if we knew, we wouldn't have gotten off our stone pedestals that should've been our final resting place.

Mae spoke with the little hobbits, growing close with them as they explained to her basically everything that was going on. How they left from an Elven place called Rivendell and how they'd been traveling for days, only stopping when necessary. Myself and Lee listened in on conversation with deep thought, but we never interjected to say any thing. I was busy thinking about how we got there… and where we were before. Why couldn't I remember anything save who my friends were, not even where I lived if not this Middle-Earth that the hobbits spoke about as if it were the only place, as if it were the entire world. But I knew something was missing. Something important and everything I was hearing was mostly for the first time.

What am I missing?


End file.
